Polar Trappers

Polar Trappers (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Goofy and Donald Duck are trappers in Antarctica who are a tad bit hungry. In order to get some food in their bellies, Donald decides to dress up as a penguin in hopes to catch one or more. While this is going on Goofy gets into a battle with a walrus. This animated short isn't a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it's got the typical high quality that you'd come to expect from Disney during this period. The highlight of the film is without question the scene where Donald dresses up as a penguin and joins a line of them in hopes of scoring dinner. There was another great scene where Donald fantasies about a cooked penguin yet calls it a chicken while the animated drawing is a cooked turkey.

Disney short with Donald Duck and Goofy as animal trappers in Antarctica ("We don't know why we catch them but we bring them back alive," Goofy sings). This is the first cartoon where Donald and Goofy appear together without Mickey. Most of the cartoon deals with Donald trying to catch a penguin because he's tired of eating beans. Meanwhile Goofy is trying (and failing) to capture a walrus. Lots of funny gags in this one. The "march of the penguins" is the highlight. The animation is wonderful, particularly those gorgeous colors. The music is very lively and cheerful. The voice work from Pinto Colvig and Clarence Nash is flawless. Disney was a cut above anyone else in animation in the 1930s and cartoons like this one are prime examples of why.

Donald and Goofy are up in the arctic circle for some reason (or it could be antarctic) and are hunting walruses and penguin respectively, as they are both tired of eating beans. While I have no problem with a dog eating a walrus doesn't anyone else find it weird that I duck would eat a penguin? Or 'roast chicken' as Donald calls it. What's to stop Goofy from eating him with that logic?

Anyway neither of them succeed, as usual. But Goofy ends up in an ice cavern. flattened by icicles and Donald attempts to march a zillion penguins to their deaths but lets a little baby get in his way and bring about the inevitable doom.

Fun nonetheless.

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

POLAR TRAPPERS Donald & Goofy are hunting for wildlife to bring back to civilization...

Here is a very funny little film from Disney's Golden Age. The Goof's hunt for a walrus is humorous, but hungry Donald's interaction with a colony of penguins he hopes to eat is hilarious. Clarence Nash provides the Duck with his unique voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

This is a semi-funny cartoon from Disney, featuring Donald and Goofy in the polar ice-caps. Goofy is having troubles with this bait as a walrus stole his fish bucket and Donald is trying to make a meal out of penguins by disguising as one and luring a parade of them back to his camp.

There are some funny moments here and there in the cartoon; I especially liked the part where Goofy is trying not to let the icicles fall on him. The "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" song that Donald plays to lure the penguins to follow him is pretty catchy - a song you would love to tap your toes to.

Not a bad Donald and Goofy cartoon.

Grade B-